RACHEL EMILY TAYLOR

ADA

Rachel — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:20:17 +0000

I was given a brief during my first year at the Royal College of Art to create an adaptation of a short story. I chose a Donald Barthelme story The School.

Extensive research fuelled the creation of this piece. Notably the case studios in psychology journals led a predominant role.

I became fascinated with my idea of creating a “leaking sculpture”, I started repetitevely drawing faces of women crying and it really stood out to me from the other ideas in my sketchbook. I was haunted by the vision of a body filled to the brim with water. I combined these sketches with my research into plaster Death Masks, Weeping Mary’s and dissolving, maleable emotions.

For my final piece, I made “Death Mask” of a child that cried. As it cries, the tears wash away the plaster and it crumbles. Whilst the dome – reminiscent of immortelle from graveyards – “wells up” with emotion and covers the child’s mouth, uncannily similar to an image of drowning.

The sculpture represents destructive grief rather than a straight adaptation of The School.

For more details on how I made the piece, have a peek on my blog by clicking here

WAX

Rachel — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 18:47:13 +0000

“WAX” is a project for the Royal College of Art’s Visual Editor Interruption brief.

After developing an obsession with Doubling, I modelled minaiture wax figures giving birth to their own doppelgangers.

Below are images taken from the book:

BIG BAD WOLF

Rachel — Wed, 04 May 2011 08:04:15 +0000

This collection of work stems closely from my Dissertation, which was titled Once Upon A Time, When Little Red Riding Hood Ate Her Grandmother and Drank Her Blood: Discussing The Metaphor of Consumption in Traditional Fairy Tales and Childhood Culture.

I reconsidered that Little Red Riding Hood was willingly devoured. By entering the wolf, he becomes the passageway to the loss of childhood innocence. The girl is reborn a woman. “In myth and fairy tale, the metaphor of devouring often stands for sex” (Warner 1994:259).

My final piece for this project was a film shot on super 8mm in a studio titled ”Grandmother’s Bones”. I also made a large 3-D sculpture of a wolf head to use as a film prop, as well as creating a collection of screen prints, sculptures and photographs.

The act of sexual penetration is conveyed through the performance art in the film. I used the colour red in my film to symbolise menstrual blood, violence and sex.

This project was exhibited at Super Graphics and can be seen in further detail here.

NOTHING IN NOWHERE

Rachel — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:38:26 +0000

Nothing In Nowhere is Edward A. Guy, Phil Guy and Rachel Emily Taylor.

Nothing In Nowhere is a recording project based in London, UK. The self-titled debut album is a collection of material that mixes heavily-digitised instrumentation with analogue engineering techniques. Written and recorded between May 2010 and June 2011, the songs feature burnt-out guitar melodies and heavily processed drum-loops over layers of tape-hiss, field-recordings and radio static.

Have a look over at the website: nothinginnowhere.com
The bandcamp: store.nothinginnowhere.com
And soundcloud: soundcloud.com/nothing-in-nowhere

For alternative etchings and imagery, please feel free to visit my blog. Click Here.

ONCE UPON A TIME

Rachel — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:57:59 +0000

This project grew from literary research I undertook for my graduate Dissertation and it links very closely to my work on the “big bad wolf”.

During my reading I came across the original oral version of Little Red Riding Hood, called The Grandmother’s Tale. The story involves the wolf latching the doors shut with the Grandmother’s tendons and tricking the naive girl into eating her own grandmother.

I used the following words from the fairy tale:

And a little cat said, “She is a slut who eats the flesh and blood of her granny!”

Alongside work by Marina Warner and Jack Zipes, I read into Freud’s theory of the Uncanny and Kristeva’s ideas on abjection. I created a short film shot on super 8mm, as well as drawings and photographs.

TRACES

Rachel — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 08:58:13 +0000

This is my most honest and personal project. I shot a film about my Grandfather. Even though he passed away a long time before I was born, I chose to focus on him because – although I had never met him – I feel like he has played a strong role throughout my life.

I wanted to create something entirely honest. I secretly recorded my family talking about him so that I could capture their true emotions. Therefore the sound I have used in my final piece is entirely honest because they are unaware that it’s being documented. I have overlaid their true emotions and voices on top of their “aware conversation” that has been filmed.

I read Family Secrets by Kuhn, and took note of the following quote: “The process of mourning as a passionate or hyper-remembering of all memories bound up with the person we have lost. Mourning is represented as a dizzying phantasmagoria of memory.” A phantasmagoria is described as an

Exhibition of optical illusions chiefly by means of magic lantern (…) a shifting series (…) of phantasms or imaginary figures, as seen in a dream or fevered condition (Kuhn 2002:105).

I tried to replicate this effect through my filming method. Unfortunately, due to the personal nature of the piece, the film is only available to watch upon request. Please don’t hestitate to get in contact.